And I’m being serious. I feel like there might be an argument there, I just don’t understand it. Can someone please “steelman” that argument for me?
If you think there was a genuine argument to not vote for Harris over Gaza war crimes, you were amongst those successfully manipulated by Russia. That argument was entirely of America’s enemies’ making as a means to get Trump elected.
My own argument to these people has been that I’d prefer they go out and cast their (wasted) votes for a third party, rather than simply stay home. A lot of Lemmy disagrees with me on that, focusing on the (true) realization that their third parties won’t get elected.
In this election’s current aftermath, much of the blame has been stating that voters were just lazy or unmotivated. The only thing this message encourages is to repeat more rallies, make more promises by demographics and region so people know to get out and vote.
If you vote third party, it sends a message that you are motivated to vote, but you are not pleased with the current messages of the party. That results in a very different change of action.
Unfortunately, this whole practice is extremely long-term-focused. Many people in this election have been desperate for short-term solutions, like the Ukraine/Gaza wars. Ideally, this kind of reaction would have started in 2016/2020 - but third-party votes have been miniscule in those elections too.
Steelman:
The US is currently a fascist, imperialist state. It has brutalized the global south, indigenous people, and POCs generally since its founding and will continue to do so unless the status quo is disrupted and changed significantly.
The Democratic party supports the same militaristic policies and the same neoliberal economic system that the Republicans do. The primary difference between the parties are various social issues that may make life somewhat better or worse for US citizens, but will never address the core problems of fascism, imperialism, and capitalism. Both parties support and protect the status quo. This status quo only benefits the bourgeois class and rich white people and harms literally hundreds of millions of others around the world.
The Democratic party is the only one of the two major parties that the Left has any degree of leverage over since the Democrats want the Left to vote for them. So, organizing to essentially boycott the Democratic party is a powerful method of protest that could effect real policy change. It is possibly the only effective method of protest left since the US police & surveilance state is cracking down on protests and the Left has no chance protesting violently against the most powerful military the world has ever seen.
The only way to make that threat matter to the Democratic party is to follow through if the demands aren’t met, even - or especially - if it means a second Trump term.
The liberal establishment has ignored and abandoned the working class for decades while dangling the carrot of milktoast social democratic reforms that rarely come to pass, but they blame the same people they abandoned for not energetically voting for them. They say it is a moral imperative to vote for them, but they are incapable of bettering the lives of working class people.
Strawman:
It would hurt my feelings too much to vote for COPmala Harm-us. Plus, Trump would let Putin annex Ukraine. Also, I’d risk touching grass if I went outside to participate in bourgeois electoralism. Gross.
Reality:
You can, and should, do more than one thing. Voting for Kamala is effectively playing defense against outright, full-throated fascism a la Mussolini even if you’d still consider the US fascist - it is clearly worse under Republicans. So vote, play defense, AND organize to raise class consciousness, provide mutual aid, protest when possible, and contribute to socialist causes. Letting Trump win would be a bad move. But, ultimately it is not the Left’s fault that he won. He won the popular vole and the electoral college vote by a large margin - larger than all third party socialist/socialist-adjacent candidates’ votes combined.
This is a great explanation, well done.
Buddy, you haven’t seen American fascism yet. Part of the problem is that people like you scream “fascist” so much that it’s lost it’s power. A fascist like Trump would have never been able to pull this off if that word hadn’t been trivializec.
This was a thread about making the specific argument you’re mad at me for making
Lemme tell the millions of children that have gone through the migrant camps, separated from their family, some of whom have disappeared, that their jailors aren’t fascists. Let me tell the latino women who have been forcibly neutered without their knowledge or consent that they’re trivializing fascism. Let’s go to those who were detained in Abu Ghraib, if any of them are still alive, that their abduction, rape, and torture by laughing US soldiers doesn’t count, it’s what happens to americans that’s worrying.
Honestly, this is the fucking smugness of somebody who knows they’re safe as long as they mask, because they’ve been safe as fascists have massively incarcerated and enslaved black people, as they’ve made ghettos of bipoc neighborhoods, as far right terrorists have shot up black churches and gay bars and lynchings are back on the up and up. Because that was trivial, what’s not trivial is if it can happen to them. Fuck dems fr.
Latinos voted heavily in favor of trump. They seem to want to be victimized.
The ones who voted for Trump voted because they think they’re not talking about them. The horrible violence will be visited upon whomever is to blame, and they don’t know anyone who’s to blame, so they have nothing to fear.
Dems do that shit too, what they’re ok with are death squads in Gaza, Nicaragua, Ukraine, because the Americans orchestrating and perpetrating those crimes against humanity would certainly never come back and apply their knowledge at home, where they live, surely. What’s more american than that?
Because the standard for Democrats is perfectionism, but the standard for Republicans is “That’s just Trump being Trump.”
In other words, they didn’t think it through, they got suckered by propaganda.
The arguments are as stupid as you guessed.
These are naive emotional people who are dumb as fuck. I know so many in my life and it’s like arguying with a brick wall.
Children still believe we live in a black and white world, democrats are in power now, genocide is happening, they will not vote for them. The concept that both will finance the genocide but another will be much worse is not something they can understand.
You have others that want to intentionally punish democrats for not doing anything. Great in the meantime, Trump will provide a full carte blanche to Nettanyahu in the middle east, he will continue what he’s doing, annex everything without any limits. They were partying in Israel after Trump won.
A third group wants the system to break down because they think if you’re a post collapse society, they will be able to build their utopia.
Yes as dumb idiots living in la la land.
Naïve/entitled people fail to grasp the concept of compromise.
its funny, because literally the next post after yours was this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/07/trump-blank-check-netanyahu-war-iran-panetta
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To quote a user from another thread:
Theyre not the ones that need to learn. Voters need to learn DNC is a bunch of wealthy moderates grifting voters.
Don’t worry. Trump won. You’ll hear a whole lot less about Gaza and genocide now.
To start, we have to understand that the genocide of Palestine started before the October 7th attacks. Israel’s rampant illegal settlements in the Gaza strip may have been the final straw that provoked Hamas to make a move, but Palestinians have been abused, forced into ghettos, and murdered by private citizens for decades. All of this, and nobody in the West ever really batted an eye at the suffering except for a handful of informed leftists.
If Harris had won, the most likely outcome is that the immediate conflict would eventually be paused, just like it paused after the second intifadas. No land would be returned, no settlements removed, but Hamas’ forces would be decimated to the point they could not fight back and Israel would return to their quiet slow genocide until the stars align to renew their attack once more.
Now that Trump has won, the most likely outcome is…that the immediate conflict will eventually pause, just like it paused after the second intifadas. Israel isn’t an island, if they ramp up their aggression ever further, eventually other parts of the world will push for sanctions on Israel. A Trump win doesn’t suddenly give Israel carte blanch to build the gas chambers, they still have to pay lip service to international law. Israel will inflict a grievous wound on Hamas, deep enough that it will take another generation before conflict resumes, and go back to expanding their settlements.
This genocide has been happening since before I was born, and multiple Democrat presidents have had an opportunity to say something or work towards curbing Israeli aggression. They’ve all vaguely promised to work towards a two-state solution, knowing that the current two states are what they want. If Kamala Harris couldn’t even call it a genocide, then she was no different, and it would be foolish to think she would actually take any steps towards meaningfully stopping Israel.
because americans see voting the same as buying and endorsing a thing which is objectively wrong.
Not buying a product hurts the manufacturer.
Not voting does jack shit. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
America has powerful Karen/Kyle energy where people overreact to a slight flaw in service and this argument is the Karen/Kyle Tantrum argument over genuinely bad policies supported by Harris. They think if they take a fit this election they will be in a better spot next election. The reality is that more poeple will be homeless and out of reach. The media will be in worse shape.
Voting is always a trolley problem.
But overall I don’t think that’s the biggest group of people. The majority of people that didn’t vote I think were tuned out of the election because of ongoing failures.
when you are laser focused on a single thing, anything else just slides past you. making life changing decisions with limited information is a uniquely american trait
Supporting genocide seems like a pretty good redline to focus on though. When both candidates promise to maintain or increase the genocide, why does this sham of a democracy deserve to be supported? This electoral system and US imperialism doesn’t have to be endless, partaking in the process only serves to legitimize the horrors commited daily.
I think some people have explained it decently, but as someone who did not vote for Harris, I have a simple explanation:
I do not want the Democratic party to think it’s Ok to be slightly better than Trump.
If I’m going to be honest, trans rights and immigration are minor issues compared to inequality and war in Gaza.
The Dems can be better, but they choose not to. Me voting for Dems signals that what Dems are doing is acceptable, but it’s not. I supported third party in 2024, and I will continue to do so until the Democrats get serious reform.
(For those who think it would be “less bad” with Harris, that’s the problem. I don’t care for “less bad” when the duopoly got us here regardless. Represent the people.)
